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Yellow Umbrella is my all time favorite place to pick up fresh fish and also unique side dishes. I wanted to make a unique salad for dinner tonight, that included a lot of flavors. I was able to buy some sockeye salmon, calamari salad that is divine and a white bean salad with shrimp, calamari and arugula. The flavors in this salad were spicy, citrus and bitter and the taste set this salad apart. All it took was about 10 minutes to put it together! For the vegans you can omit the sockeye salmon and you have a wonderful salad full of protein and flavor.

This is an easy dish that can be used with chicken, fish, or shrimp or can be eaten by itself for a vegan option. It is full of antioxidant nutrients and includes vitamins C,A, folate, B6, K, potassium, zinc, calcium, Iron, and manganese, One serving will give you 6 grams of fiber and 8 grams of protein. To boost the protein for the vegan’s add more beans or add nutritional yeast or tofu.

Mango Salsa:

Ingredients:

2 yellow mango chopped

2 serrano peppers chopped

2 limes

cilantro chopped

1 avocado chopped

Mix mango, peppers, cilantro and avocado together. Squeeze in lime and salt and pepper to taste. Put to the side.

Ingredients:

Cannellini beans

Arugula

Red quinoa cooked

Directions:

Place arugula on a plate. Top with quinoa then cannelloni beans then mango salsa. Add smoked paprika and salt and pepper to taste. Top with chopped toasted almonds. Enjoy!

This dish is a wonderful low glycemic mediterranean dish that has 17 grams of fiber, plant like protein as well as vitamin C, A, magnesium, and zinc. It is one of my favorite recipes because it is takes about 10 minutes to prepare and it is delicious! When shrimp is not available I will use the almond cheese to increase the protein. What is nice about this dish is the black bean pasta has 15 grams of protein per serving.

Ingredients:

4 cups Black Bean Rotini Pasta (Trader Joe’s)

2 cups Marinara Sauce (Use your favorite, I use Trader Joe’s)

1 small red onion sliced thin

4 garlic cloves chopped

1 tablespoon avocado oil (Trader Joe’s)

2 cups chopped broccoli

6 cups baby spinach

1 zucchini chopped

1 pound shrimp (steamed and peeled)

Directions:

Cook Black Bean Pasta according to instructions on the package.

Add sauce to a pan and turn on low heat. In a saute pan on medium heat add avocado oil. Add onion and garlic and cook until it begins to toast. Add broccoli and cook for a couple of minutes along with the zucchini. Once the broccoli and zucchini are cooked, add the spinach and allow to cook for a minute and turn off heat.

To serve put the marinara sauce in the bottom of a bowl, then place black beans in marinara sauce and top with vegetables. Shrimp can be placed on the vegetables or if you are a vegan then eat without the shrimp. If you are a vegan and you want to add more protein then use the almond cheese grated on top of the vegetables.

Place vegetable or chicken stock in a crock pot, add 4 cups water. If you do not have a crock pot then place it in a soup pan on the stove. Add lentils to the crockpot and cook on high for about 2 hours or on low for 4 hours. If you are using the stove top method then bring water to a boil and add lentils and allow to simmer until lentils are soft.

Add olive oil to a saute pan and add garlic and onions. Allow to cook until soft. Add green beans, artichoke hearts and saute until soft. Add spinach and allow to wilt. Add tomatoes and sauce and continue to cook until it is at a temperature to your liking.

I soaked my black beans at night then cooked them in the slow cooker the next day. If it is easier for you to buy canned black beans make sure you rinse them thoroughly. Chop beets and purple sweet potato and place in a dutch oven along with 1 tablespoon olive oil to roast for about 15 minutes. Add olive oil to a pan and saute the red onion and garlic. Add black beans to a bowl along with the roasted beets and sweet potato. Mash them together and add the toasted onions and garlic. Add the hemp seeds and nutritional yeast and then make into patties. Add grape seed oil to a skillet and cook on low until black bean patties are brown on each side. Place on a plate and allow to cool so the patties will then hold together.

Vegetable Stir Fry

Ingredients

2 cups chopped broccoli

3 garlic cloves chopped

1 small red onion chopped

2 cups kale chopped

1 cup shittake mushrooms chopped

Add olive oil to a saute pan and turn stove on medium heat. Add vegetables and begin to saute then slowly turn down the heat and allow vegetables to cook until you like the texture.

This is a great vegetarian dish to start the new year with. Full of antioxidant nutrients, the beets and the greens will provide iron, vitamin C, folate, magnesium and fiber.

My newest smoothie creation is made up of unsweetened hemp milk, beet’s and blueberries. Of course I add my favorite protein powder, Vegan Complete which has 15 grams of protein along with fiber.

Beetroot is a rich source of phytochemical compounds that includes ascorbic acid, carotenoids, phenolic acids and flavonoids. Beetroot is also one of the few vegetables that contain a group of highly bioactive pigments known as betalains. A number of investigations have reported betalains to have high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory capabilities. This has sparked interest in a possible role for beetroot in clinical pathologies characterized by oxidative stress and chronic inflammation such as liver disease.

We all know that blueberries are a rich source of antioxidant and 1 cup has 8 grams of fiber!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsweetened hemp milk

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen red beets

Vegan Vanilla Complete Protein powder – 2 scoops

Put in blender and blend until smooth and creamy! Enjoy!

If you mention you saw this blog post receive 10% off on a canister of Vegan Complete!

It’s the time of year where you want something quick, refreshing and satisfying. I combined dark cherries with Fit Food Complete and coconut milk with a added boost of quercetin to help with seasonal allergies. Why call it Cardiometabolic? It has the perfect balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat along with fiber to help stabilize the blood sugar and to make it heart healthy!

Quercetin became a popular and widely used remedy for sinus congestion, sneezing, and the pollen season. I have been using it daily and so far sneezing, nasal congestion and headaches have been low!

For the next two weeks (April 23rd-May 6th) we will be offering 10% off of Fit Food Complete. When you come into the office or call please mention it and we will gladly apply the discount!

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh spinach

2 scoops Fit Food Complete

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk

1/4 tsp. Quercetin (I use Designs for Health)

12 frozen cherries

Add coconut milk with 1/2 cup water to your blender. Add 1 cup fresh spinach and the quercetin and blend on high. Add protein powder and cherries and blend until you have a creamy smoothie.

We suppose Panera’s awesome chicken salad might have made us a bit biased when it comes to other restaurant options. Okay, really biased. That’s probably all it is. Right?

Or is Subway hiding behind their cleverly executed marketing, which has convinced us all they’re the healthiest fast food option?

Today’s lunch review is not a happy one. As Tina searches through Subway’s online menu, seeking the perfect healthy option to review for you, dear reader, in an effort to make your lunch-on-the-go selections healthier, she finally lands on their Turkey Breast Salad. She nods approvingly. “I would rather have the Double Chicken Chopped Salad,” she says, “but we should try something new.”

Stephanie meets plenty of friendly service and even friendlier smells at the local Subway, and walks away happy with the experience. But when Tina takes a bite, she knows right away something is wrong.

First off, where’s the turkey? It was almost a hopeless task, Tina digging through her salad to find any shreds of meat she could to weigh. (Yes, we weighed it. Don’t you want a thorough review?)

Voilà! Here it is. After minutes and minutes of agonized sifting: an ounce and a half of turkey. It’s precisely the amount they promised, but not exactly the delicious juicy turkey breast we dreamed of. Tina tosses it back into her salad and starts in on her lunch. “I don’t know if it’s the most delicious salad I’ve had, but it’s an okay option,” she decides.

This picture is after Tina found the turkey hidden beneath the lettuce and veggies.

It looks as though we’re facing a mundane C+ sort of review for this salad. But things get exciting when Tina comes across Subway’s page of Product Ingredients. This is different from nutrition facts; here we see more into the details of each ingredient and food item they offer.

Suffice it to say Tina’s salad went untouched after she read this page.

Tina’s discovery at Subway has encouraged her to pen a more thorough, coherent article than we can offer now about what preservatives and additives can do to the body, and why we should all avoid them. For now, we can only mention the horror at realizing Subway injects their hot peppers with Yellow Dye #5 (why?! Fresh peppers?!), and their meats have way too many ingredients that are not meat. Sodium, fats, carbs, sugar and the like should be considered when selecting a restaurant meal, but additives like the ones Subway uses rather liberally should be avoided all together. Soy protein concentrate, another leading player in Subway’s “meats”, for example, can create hormone imbalance, among other issues. Some of their additives may not exactly be deadly, but why would you consume protein with so many fillers if you can help it?

For now, realize that you don’t have to limit yourself to free range, organic, hand-fed and well-loved meat. You do want, however, to see only a few ingredients in your proteins: ideally meat, and as little after that as possible. High-quality protein is crucial for maintaining a healthy weight, having higher energy and generally fueling your body. Don’t settle for sodium injections, corn syrup solids or soy protein concentrate.

We give Subway’s options overall a resounding F. Sorry, Subway. Your food is tasty and we appreciate the gift card, but absolutely cannot recommend it to anyone.